National, Utah Log Cabin Republicans withhold Trump endorsement

The national board of the Log Cabin Republicans released a statement that the group will withhold endorsement from our Party’s current nominee, the first time in 12 years the organization hasn’t done so. The Utah chapter is also not endorsing a presidential candidate this year as well.

“Mr. Trump is perhaps the most pro-LGBT presidential nominee in the history of the Republican Party,” the board released in a statement. “His unprecedented overtures to the ‘LGBTQ community’ — a first for any major-party candidate in our nation’s history — are worthy of praise, and should serve as a clarion call to the GOP that the days of needing to toe an anti-LGBT line are now a thing of the past.”

The group, which was founded in 1977, says that they are “not a single-issue organization, nor are our members single-issue voters.”

“As Mr. Trump spoke positively about the LGBT community in the United States, he concurrently surrounded himself with senior advisers with a record of opposing LGBT equality, and committed himself to supporting legislation such as the so-called ‘First Amendment Defense Act’ that Log Cabin Republicans opposes,” the statement continues.

“Should Mr. Trump become our nation’s next [p]resident, Log Cabin Republicans welcomes the opportunity to work with his administration to ensure the advances in LGBT freedom we have fought for and secured will continue. Until and unless that happens, our trust would be misplaced.”

“Log Cabin Republicans will spend the remainder of the 2016 election cycle committed to preserving and growing GOP majorities in the United States Senate and House of Representatives,” the statement ended.

Group leaders sent a poll to chapters across the nation to help guide their decision.

The Utah chapter voted almost unanimously not to endorse Trump, with only one voting in favor.

“One of the members not only voted ‘Not just no, but HELL NO,” said Mel Nimer, Utah Log Cabin Republicans president.

He said that some have shown support for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

The last time Log Cabin refused to endorse the Republican presidential nominee was in 2004 as a result of then-President George W. Bush making a U.S. Constitutional amendment a central component of his re-election campaign. Log Cabin endorsed John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.